Principles for Public Participation in AI Procurement
How can different publics and civil society play a greater role in the procurement of AI-driven systems in the public sector? How can AI procurement decisions include the voices of the most affected communities? In partnership with ParticipationAI, we’ve been working on developing a set of principles for public participation in AI Procurement.
Events
Local and national governments are spending $millions on Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to support efficiency and reform in service delivery, and new AI features are being offered in many of the existing tools governments use.
Join us on the morning of Monday 6th October for a fringe event of the OGP Global Summit to explore the role of procurement in shaping AI in government, and the role of public participation in shaping AI procurement.
At the Open Government Partnership Summit in October 2025 Participation AI and Connected by Data will launch a set of principles for public engagement in AI procurement.
In this brown-bag lunch at the OpenGovHub in Washington DC we’ll be sharing the draft principles for discussion, and gathering shared insights and inputs on how they can be put into practice.
Along with Lucia Errandonea from Participation AI Tim presented the draft principles on public participation in AI procurement to the Open Government Partnership’s Open Algorithms Network, which brings together government representatives from over 10 countries within the OGP Network.
The session offered an opportunity to get feedback on the draft principles, and to explore some of the challenges governments face in embedding transparency and participation within technology procurement activities.
As governments increasingly use AI to deliver public services, key decisions—especially around procurement—often happen behind closed doors, without input from the communities most affected.
Opinion
The principles for Public Participation in AI Procurement we will be co-launching alongside the Open Government Partnership Summit in a few weeks time focus on the what and the how of involving affected communities in decisions at all stages of buying and managing AI systems in the public sector. But ahead of that, we need to answer the question why? Why is is particularly important to involve publics in AI procurement, when, to date, procurement has often not been a space where public engagement is widespread.
Preparing for our workshop at the Open Gov Hub today, I’ve jotted down the following reasons.